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Looking over my wife Annie’s cottage garden on the weekend (just
‘looking’ Annie, because I’m not allowed to tough anything in there) I
noticed the enormous mass of gypsophila in flower and admired how useful it is dress up a
posy of flowers indoors. They thrive on our local soils and the tiny white booms go on all
summer and it all resulted from a six cell seedling punnet for $2.50! Not too late to
plant them even now.
This long ‘second spring’ with heavy dew at night that we have been having
over the past ten days has caused wisteria and brachychiton (Flame tree) to come back into
flower. It should be ringing bells in the ears of all gardeners to get out and feed
things. Sunny days and mild nights are good growth indicators.
All the hardy ‘rosa-sinensis’ hibiscus cultivars that thrive locally like
‘Mrs. Davis’ and ‘Apple blossom’ are mostly in need of a feed at
present. Use the high potassium water-soluble fertilizers with a measure of organic
pellets, but do not rely on only using blood and bone or the pellets as that causes soft
growth that gets infested with aphids all too easily.
This is the month to start thinking about sowing the cabbage family in the winter
vegetable garden. If new to this, start with kohl rabi, it’s fail safe. If you can
spare a part of your vegetable garden for four or five months then cauliflower tastes
totally different when home grown. The smaller cabbages such as ‘sugarloaf’ are
easy and broccoli is a great asset.
I buy a seedling mixture rather than spot sow or mix my own and get reliable results
every time. Sow in full sun, but use a section of shadecloth over the pots. Prick the
seedlings out to the vegetable garden when they are 8-10cm tall and make sure you select
your sunniest mid winter patch because that greatly reduces diseases.
The root crops such as turnips and Swedes, parsnips, carrots, radish and spring onions,
can all be sown now into well dug soil. The seed of all these is sown direct into drills
at leats 20cm (8") apart. Any closer and it’s too hard to chip the weeds out in
the rows.
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